Today I went to another “geeky” shopping center. Nakano broadway in Nakano.
I made my way to Nakano by subway, when you exit the station towards the mall you first have to pass trough a shopping street filled with food bars and the traditional (tourist) shops.
Once past the street you arrive at a 4 story mall, with some supermarket style shops in the basement, ‘normal’ stores on the 1st floor and then it begins. the remaining three floors are filled with Geek-related stores, it really is mini-akihabara out here. Although I do have to say, most of the shops are either Mandarake or Lashinban that specialise in certain items. On the fourth floor there are supposed to be some art galleries, but it looks like those were closed today.
It also was here that I realised what ‘felt wrong’ in Akihabara. Going from store to store. The time I spend there was in 1-2 stores, as they are huge. Here it was a collection of small stores and I liked going from one to the other.
For lunch I went back towards the shopping street and found a little restaurant where I had some gyoza and rice.
After that I made my way to Shinjuku, as it was one of the districts I hadn’t seen yet and I had an appointment there later in the evening. Next to strolling around I got some more souvenirs and a few boardgames.
After that it was time for dinner. I met up with an old friend living in Japan and we went to an Izakaya. Ordered some yakisoba and skewers to munch on. After this she was so kind to show me around some more ‘hidden’ parts of Shinjuku and we eventually ended up in a karaoke room for 90 minutes of trying to read the kana fast enough to sing along (for me that was the case).
For Lunch I had some Osaka Yakisoba with a Gundam Taiyaki and some kind of strawberry drink. After that I watched the Gundam transform and went back to Akihabara for some more shopping!
I had dinner in some kind of peppered-beef restaurant.
Slept in a bit so left pretty late. An hour on public transport later I arrived in Asakusa and the first thing I saw was the Asahi “cloud”. With the Tokyo Skytree to the left.
That one would be my destination later on in the day, but first some more traditional stuff in the middle of this city.
After walking trough the neighbourhood I arrived at the Tokyo Skytree. Where I went to visit the Pokémon Center. This center has a huge Rayquaza displayed. I found that one pretty cool!
Got my culture take for the day, now it was time to travel to Akihabara, the Geek heaven in Japan. And honestly? I wasn’t that amazed by it, probably dulled by my previous experiences in the country. Had I gone here first, then Dotonbori would’ve been a “meeh” so yeah. Take this with a grain of salt.
I did some more shopping and decided on dinner in a place close to the station. Afterwards I went back to Ikebukuro to play some more Mahjong.
All I can say about Ikebukuro station, it’s a maze. When I finally got out, I was greeted by these owls. The owl has a special connection to Ikebukuro as I see them everywhere including owl café’s.
On my way to Sunshine City, the mall that has the Pokémon store in it. I walked past a small anime event. It was apparently the Animate Girls Festival -Animate is one of the biggest anime and manga chains-. So cosplayers everywhere in the park and surrounding stores.
Arrived in the mall I got to the Pokémon center and bought the stuff I wanted and got also got a Yokohama Pikachu card as a gift there.
For lunch I took the elevator up to the 59th floor to enjoy a nice view over the city while eating this hamburger.
I then walked to a Buddhist temple around 15 minutes away. It’s really crazy to see how big this domain is, in the middle of a city like this, surrounded by skyscrapers.
Then I went to do some more shopping and eventually went back to that Mahjong School. Played two full games there, lost the first one. But won the second one with a 200 point difference! I’ll definitely be going back here. Automated tables are a bliss.
For dinner I went for some chicken again.
In Odawara station I had lunch, some quick Katsu Kare before stepping onto the Shinkansen towards Tokyo.
There I immediately went to my Air BnB place near Ikebukuro and went shopping for tomorrow’s breakfast and my dinner as it was raining again.
Anyways, made my way to the 9h30 Kodama Shinkansen on the way to Odawara where I had to take another train to Hakone itself. Bought myself the free-pass as that should save me some money in the long run. It’s basicly a pass you buy for Y4000 that lets you use most public transport without any extra costs. This includes trains, buses, the cruise ship, rope-ways, cable cars. If you use all once, you’ve got your money out of it. So that’s the plan for tomorrow as the current weather doesn’t really allow for it.
In Gora I had lunch at the Ninja café… basicly an excuse to sell ninja-related merchandise in their bar and walk around in all black, wouldn’t recommend. Then I took the cable car and the rope-way up the mountain. Even though it was raining you could still see the nature around.
At the top of the rope-way there’s a small volcanic museum, like 2 rooms. But entrance was only Y100 and it had some cool basic info (in English) and microscopes with ash, magma, sulfur and other plates to look at. With also a bit of history thrown in about Mt. Hakone.
Dinner for the night was Teriyaki chicken with sweet potato. All I can say about the sweet potato is that they fill like a bomb and have the taste of a sugar coated pancake.
On my way there I stopped for breakfast at a local chain. The sandwich was decent, nothing special. Point of interest here is the teabag coaster that absorbs the tea left in the bag. Stops your plate from getting all messed up!
Onwards to the museum! It’s a really modern design, with the top half of the ball being the biggest planetarium in the world! It consists of three buildings each with their own theme. Expectedly all the explanations were in Japanese but they have an app with the information for some of the exhibits in different languages.
They also have a few set shows going on that you can participate in. The first one is a show around their 9m tall tornado. Having a staff member dressed up as a witch/wizard and performing some magic with the tornado machine.
In the basement they had their temporary exhibit about a mission on one of the poles. On another floor they also host a DeepFreezing Lab, recreating the conditions on the poles with -31°C. Don’t worry you get a long coat for the lab, the picture is from the temporary exhibit.
Lunch was a bowl of rice with egg and a side of udon noodles.
Next to it was a shopping district I was interested in and spend much of the remaining day. Every two hours this screen starts playing some nice clips with the dragons in the lead. Eventually the dragons also start to light up and even shoot out some water.
With the plan to visit the castle, I left my luggage in a locker and took the metro towards the castle grounds. There I learned that the castle tower itself is in renovation (until 2022) but the grounds surrounding it are open including the Nagoya Honmaru Goten Palace that only recently opened to the public after it was rebuild the traditional way. The original palace survived many natural disasters and political changes. But a WWII air raid burned it down.
But first I noticed that here you can enter one of the watch-houses often seen on the corners of the domains. As I’ve been curious about these after seeing them like, everywhere on the castle grounds. It was my first stop of the day. The inside is fairly simple, 3 stories of big open spaces with windows only on the outward facing walls and on the first floor the option to throw stones to climbing invaders.
Then I took a guided tour in a port of the Honmaru. They have English guides available. Here I was amazed. As I said before this palace was rebuild only recently using all the classic techniques. With a result that it’s all bright brown in contrast to all the previous sites I visited.
After the side building I visited the main part of this palace where the old lords would receive their guests. The walls of the rooms here are also adored with paintings in gold. Pretty much the same style as the Nijo-jo castle. Note: these are digital replica’s, the real ones that got saved from the fires are now in in restauration!
Unfortunately the castle itself is undergoing earthquake proofing and a restoration towards a wooden build instead off the concrete mass that was erected after the war. But to compensate for that they had the option to visit the castle in VR!
Next up, as usual was strolling around the city. Found the Nagoya tower and the central park, a shounen jump store and a platform called the spaceship that’s two floors high and is for 90% filled with water. This platform also provides a nice view of the Sakae area.
After tall that I made my way back to the station, picked up my stuff and proceeded to my hostel.
Well I walked the way up trough all the gates to the top (233m). And went down again to the start of the loop to the top. Just a few minutes up another road you get a really nice view of Kyoto.
Here I got some Dango as lunch together with a melonpan I brought with me.
There I found the biggest miniature diaroma in Japan. Here they rebuild Kyoto and all of its temples, shrines and other important buildings. They have multiple trains running around and there’s just so much happening at the same time. There’s even a special Totoro spot!
After that I went back to the hostel, grabbed myself a plate of Gyoza and visited the second hand store in the mall.
But first breakfast! The good old toast & jam will keep me nourished for the next 2 days.
First stop today is Nijo-jo Castle. A place where a shogunate started and ended in probably the same room. The inside is decorated with murals in golden paint. Really impressive to walk around in! This ground castle is surrounded by a pretty nice garden to walk trough.
Next stop was the Manga Museum, for some reason entrance was free and am I glad it was. Next to the giant collection of manga, a “what is manga?” exhibition and plaster models from manga artists’ hands there isn’t that much to see. The cool part about this is that it’s located in an old school building, thus it also has a ‘history route’ about the school.
It was time for lunch, so while I’m here why not try out the Manga Museum Café?
My last planned stop for the day was a visit to the local rivers delta. Why you ask? They placed stepping stones trough the delta in the form of turtles!
After that I passed by another shopping district and the Kyoto Tower by night. For dinner I decided to get something from the local 7/11. Yakisoba!